State Hopes For Growth, Policy Changes Under Clinton

State Hopes For Economic Boost, Policy Changes Under Clinton

Should Connecticut rejoice because Bill Clinton, friend of powerful state figures and champion of ailing industrial economies, will be the next president?

After all, Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman, D-Conn., was the first senator outside the South to back the new president; he and other top state Democrats who are Clinton friends may well have influence in the new administration.

And the president-elect repeatedly has emphasized the need to retrain defense workers, rebuild the nation's infrastructure and provide incentives to get factories producing more efficiently -- all antidotes the state's economy needs.

These things may help, experts say, but many warn that Clinton was not just elected president of Connecticut.

Much of what he wants to do takes government money, and because of a dozen years of annual deficits that have topped $100 billion, there is a huge reluctance among Washington lawmakers to let the deficit keep growing.

"They [Clinton's advisers] know that if you do too much up front, it will make it even harder to reduce the deficit," said Ellen Nissenbaum, legislative director at the nonpartisan Center for Budget and Policy Priorities in Washington. "Even if they try short-term stuff, they feel it has to be paid for."

That means every tax break for manufacturing could mean a tax increase on the wealthy. Or every dollar spent to retrain defense workers would have to come out of some other federal program.

Thus, said Matt Kane, economist for the Northeast-Midwest Congressional Institute, "It's hard to tell what will happen. It's entirely unpredictable."

What is most predictable is that Clinton will break a social-issues logjam that has divided Washington for years.

Sen. Christopher J. Dodd, D-Conn., for instance, predicted Tuesday that his family-leave legislation would move through Congress and be signed by Clinton "within weeks of this new administration; no more seven years of waiting."

Dodd has tried for years to win passage, but President Bush has refused to go along. He vetoed the latest attempt to win legislation to require many businesses to give most employees as many as 12 weeks of unpaid leave to take care of a new baby or sick family member.

The House effort to override the bill fell 27 votes short, but there still was a 258-to-169-vote majority for the measure. Clinton has said he will support family leave.

He also is expected to back legislation similar to this year's Freedom of Choice Act, which would have barred most state abortion restrictions. The bill never made it past House or Senate committees this year.

Clinton's biggest mission will be to get the stalled economy moving again and, in Connecticut, analysts look to three areas: infrastructure, manufacturing and defense, and urban aid.

In his book, "Putting People First," Clinton pledged to create a "Rebuild America Fund," with a $20 billion federal investment each year for four years.

The fund would help pay for improvements in transportation, communications, environmental technology and defense conversion.

In the transportation area, Michael T. Saunders, Connecticut deputy secretary for policy and planning, said the state has "a lot of projects ready to go" if it gets the money.

The projects range from bridge rehabilitation to resurfacing I-91 south of Hartford.

Saunders thinks an ambitious road renovation program would be an instant boon to the state's economy. He estimated that for every $1 million spent on highways, 50 jobs are created, including nine on the project itself, 12 "indirect" jobs, such as providing the supplies for the work, and 29 "ripple-effect" jobs. These are jobs created because people have money to buy more products in stores or to buy more cars.

"This could put people to work fast," Saunders said.

There was more caution in the defense and manufacturing sectors.

Clinton has vowed to order the Pentagon to conduct a national defense jobs inventory to assist displaced workers and provide special conversion loans and grants to small business defense contractors.

He also has opposed ending the Seawolf nuclear submarine program, saying the U.S. should build the submarines already paid for. That would mean finishing the two vessels and possibly a third. The vessel is built by the Electric Boat division of General Dynamics Corp. in Groton.

Bush wanted to end the program after one boat, although money later was restored for a second.

All this sounds good for the state, but analysts still are wary.

Clinton's defense cuts would go $60 billion deeper over the next five years than Bush had proposed, losses that would likely be felt in the state. And experts warned that retraining defense workers is not something that can happen instantly.

"If you have to create a lot of new programs, that will take time," said Carol Lessure, legislative analyst at the Defense Budget Project in Washington.